The present invention relates to the rotor spinning of textile yarns and, more particularly, to rotor spinning machines of the type having a plurality of simultaneously operated spinning stations each equipped with a driven spinning rotor, a driven sliver opening roller, and a driven drawing-in roller for feeding sliver to the opening roller, all of which are installed in a housing of the spinning station having an openable lid or cover to provide access to the functional parts.
Conventionally, sliver is fed to the opening rollers at the spinning stations of rotor spinning machines via drawing-in rollers at each station, each drawing-in roller being connected via a worm gear to a common drive shaft extending along the entire spinning machine. Driving of the drawing-in rollers in this manner is known from published, non-examined German Patent Application DE-OS 27 21 386. If the yarn or sliver breaks, and during piecing up operations, the drawing-in roller is disconnected from the drive shaft by actuation of a coupling. Driving all the drawing-in rollers along one side of the spinning machine with a common drive shaft, and the provision of a coupling for each drawing-in roller, requires a considerable engineering expense and does not allow for individualized feeding of the slivers to be adjustably adapted to particular circumstances at the spinning stations.